Plastic recycling still faces many challenges

Plastic recycling still faces many challenges

Circular economy is a model of economic growth in line with the concept of sustainable development, China in the 1990s introduced the concept of circular economy, due to technical, economic and other multiple factors constraints, the current domestic and foreign circular economy development results are limited. These are fully embodied in the plastic cycle. As one of the important components of the circular economy, the recycling of plastic materials has a close relationship with petrochemical enterprises. Our government has long been focusing on controlling the pollution of plastic materials, and petrochemical enterprises can also do something to help plastic recycling.

China introduced the concept of circular economy in the 1990s, and since then, the theoretical research and practice of circular economy has been deepening. 2021 July National Development and Reform Commission issued the "14th Five-Year" Circular Economy Development Plan, which put forward the "14th Five-Year" period of China's circular economy development. In July 2021, the National Development and Reform Commission issued the "14th Five-Year" Circular Economy Development Plan, which puts forward the main objectives of China's circular economy development in the "14th Five-Year" period. Due to the constraints of technology, economy and other multiple factors, although the circular economy at home and abroad has been developed for many years. The results are relatively limited. The road ahead there are still many difficulties to be overcome. And these are fully reflected in the plastic cycle.

Plastic temporary loop utilization is an important part of the circular economy, and petrochemical enterprises are closely related.

According to statistics, so far the world has produced more than 10 billion tons of plastic products, of which only 9% were rice ring use, about 12% were incinerated, and the remaining 79% eventually piled up in landfills or into the natural environment. China's annual average production of about 80 million tons of plastic products in recent years, accounting for about 1896 of the global total, the pressure of plastic products management.

China's government has long attached importance to combating plastic pollution. 1991, China's government issued the first restriction on the use of plastic products policy - "elimination of outdated production capacity, technology and product catalog (the first batch)": In December 2007, the introduction of the "restriction order" - "on the restriction of the production of sales and the use of plastic shopping bags of the notice": "the use of plastic shopping bags". In September 2009, the implementation of the Law on the Promotion of Circular Economy was launched; in January 2020, the Opinions on Further Strengthening the Control of Plastic Pollution was published; in September 2021, the "14th Five-Year Plan" was issued.

Through the joint efforts of the government, enterprises and the society, China's plastic pollution control has made great achievements. In recent years, China's waste plastic material utilization of the global share of about 45%. 2021 domestic material recycling volume of about 19 million tons, material recycling rate of 31%, is 174 times the global average level of waste plastic. In the same year, the United States, the European Union, Japan's domestic materialized recycling rate was only 5.31%, 17.18% and 12.50% respectively.

At this stage, the promotion of domestic and foreign plastics recycling is faced with technical, economic and other challenges.

On the technical side, plastic recycling needs to solve the challenge of downcycling. Plastic bottles are one of the most common plastic waste, usually made of PET (commonly known as polyester resin). Theoretically, the waste PET plastic title can be shredded into pieces, from PET out of HDPE (high-density polyethylene error), aluminum, paper and adhesives, PET fragments and then by washing, dry bath, granulation, and then create a new PET photo, to achieve the "bottle to the birth of a child" of the bracketed loop. In practice, however, PET bottles are usually downgraded for recycling. They are often shredded, dissolved and remanufactured into polyester fibers (commonly known as polyester). Polyester fibers are then made into clothing. 

After the clothes are worn out, they are often thrown away as garbage, and then after that they are incinerated, landfilled, etc. It can be seen that it is difficult to close the loop of plastic recycling due to technical and other challenges, which is a common problem faced by plastic recycling all over the world. There is also an economic problem in recycling plastic materials. Type material products are widely used and of low value. In addition, most waste plastics are often mixed with other garbage, so it is difficult to collect them. Considering the labor cost and other factors, the relevant enterprises are more difficult to economically viable way to fully carry out the love rate material by-products recycling and processing and other work.

Petrochemical enterprises and the plastics industry are closely related, in order to help the development of circular economy, petrochemical enterprises can act as many places. In the production period, petrochemical enterprises can optimize the product structure, reduce the output of disposable low-end plastic products, increase the output of high-energy plastic raw materials, from the source to reduce the amount of; expand the production scale of recyclable plastic products, to help improve the recycling rate of plastic products and so on. In consumption, petrochemical enterprises as a large consumer of consumables, can consider to enhance the cement, non-ferrous metals and other difficult to reduce carbon emissions materials such as the rate of recycling, so as to both carbon emission reduction and economy.

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